The invention relates to an electric connector with a cable holding mechanism, particularly to an electric connector with a cable holding mechanism provided with a cable bundling piece for bundling wires.
With a conventional electric connector from which a cable connected to a connector terminal is drawn out from a direction opposite to a direction of insertion through the electric connector, if a tensile force is applied to the cable, the tensile force is directly transmitted to the connector terminal. If the tensile force becomes strong, there occur drawbacks in that the connector terminal and the cable are disconnected from each other or a part (a lance) of the connector terminal which is retained inside a connector housing is deformed to cause the connector terminal not to be retained by the housing, thereby causing the connector terminal to be removed from the connector housing.
There is known a first method, for solving these drawbacks, of fixedly attaching a cable to a housing using a specially shaped fixing piece to prevent a tensile force from directly applying to a connector terminal or a second method of attaching a cover to a back face of a connector housing so as to draw out a cable backward after the cable is once bent.
The first method is, for example, disclosed in JU-A 63-3076 and the second method is, for example, disclosed in JP-A 11-329574.
An electric connector as disclosed in JU-A 63-3076 comprises, as shown in FIG. 7, a block 100 having a contact which is inserted into or removed from the block 100, and a contact hood 101 for covering a connection part between the contact and a cable when the contact hood 101 is retained by the block 100. A base table 102 is formed on the contact hood 101 for attaching a cable clamp 104 at a position in the vicinity of a cable drawing opening, and the cable clamp 104 fixed to the base table by screws 103 so as to clamp an outer periphery of a cable 105 so that a tensile force is not applied to the connection part.
An electric connector with a cable holding piece as disclosed in JP-A 11-329574 comprises, as shown in FIGS. 8(A) and 8(B), a pair of holding plates 110A, 110B, a narrow width part 111 for connecting between the holding plates, and a clamp 112 for bundling wires which are drawn out from a back face of a connector housing provided at one of the holding plates. When the cable holding piece is attached to the connector housing, the narrow width part 111 is inserted into an insertion groove 113 provided in the connector housing, so that the narrow width part 111 is retained by a slot part and is prevented from being removed therefrom. As a result, each wire is bent along the back face of the connector housing, then it is arranged backward, and hence a tensile force does not directly act on terminals provided inside the connector housing even if the tensile force is applied to each wire.
However, with these electric connectors described above, a special metal fitting or a specially shaped holding piece for fixing a cable is needed to be prepared in advance in addition to the connector housing, and the connector housing is needed to be molded in a special shape so that the special metal fitting or the like can be attached to the housing. Accordingly, there has arisen a problem in that not only work for attaching the special metal fitting or the like to the housing is bothersome, but also the number of components increases because a metal fitting and components for fitting the metal fitting or the like are required, and then a manufacturing cost of the electric connector is increased because a molding process of the housing is bothersome.
The invention has been developed to solve the problems described above and an object of the invention is to provide an electric connector with a cable holding mechanism for simplifying the structure of the cable holding mechanism without using a special cable holding piece, reducing the number of man-hours by simplifying work for attaching the cable holding mechanism to the connector housing, and reducing a manufacturing cost.
The object of the invention can be achieved by the following means and structure.
The electric connector with a cable holding mechanism according to the invention comprises a plug proper having a plurality of connector terminals fitted therein at an inner opening thereof and a cable drawing face from which wires connected to the connector terminals is drawn out, a cover cap to be fitted to the plug proper in a state where the cable drawing face is covered therewith and the cable is drawn outside, and a cable holding mechanism formed on wall faces of the cover cap, characterized in that the cable holding mechanism is made up of grooves each having a width in which a flexible strip-like piece of a cable bundling piece is inserted at a position in the vicinity of a cable drawing opening of the cover cap.
The grooves are formed to have a width in which the strip-like piece of the cable bundling piece is inserted into the wall faces of the cover cap, and the strip-like piece of the cable bundling piece is inserted into and fixedly attached to the grooves. As a result, the shape of the grooves is simplified so that the fabrication of the grooves is easy.
It is preferable that the cable bundling piece bundles a plurality of wires and comprises the flexible strip-like piece having a given width and thickness, ratches at one face thereof, and a retainer provided at the tip end of the flexible strip-like piece for engaging with one of the ratches.
Since the cable bundling piece has been already known, an additional special fastener or the like is not needed because the cable bundling piece can be used for the cable holding mechanism.
Further, it is preferable that the grooves are made up of convex projections which are wider than a width of the strip-like piece of the cable bundling piece and are arranged in parallel with each other, and a height of the convex projections is approximately the same as a thickness of the strip-like piece.
Still further, it is preferable that the grooves are made up of two inner projections which are wider than a width of the strip-like piece of the cable bundling piece and are arranged in parallel with each other, and outer convex projections provided in the vicinity of the outside of the two inner convex projections, wherein a height of the respective convex projections is approximately the same as a thickness of the strip-like piece, and the tip end of the outer convex projections is longer than that of the inner convex projections.
More still further, it is preferable that the respective convex projections are provided on opposite wall faces of the cover cap, and the strip-like piece of the wire bundling piece is engaged and inserted between the opposite inner convex projections.
Since these grooves are made up of convex projections, the shape thereof is simplified and is formed with ease. Further, since the cable holding mechanism can be fixedly attached to the connector housing by merely pushing the strip-like piece of the wire bundling piece between the convex projections, it can be fitted into the connector housing without using tools or the like with ease.